Gusting winds on Christmas Eve played havok with our screen (it was borderline dangerous), so we had to retreat to the Scout Hall at the last minute for our screening of Nightmare Before Christmas. It was disappointing not to do the film outside, especially as later in the evening it calmed down and turned into a beautiful clear winter's night, but those are the shakes when you try and do things outside. Hopefully everyone that wanted to come found the signs that we put up at the entrances to the field.

Then we had a technical hitch with the sound too, a dodgy connection meant we had to ditch the EQ shortly after the film started. Grrr. So apologies for the slight pause and the EQless sound, hopefully it wasn't too disruptive. It's all fixed for Chasing Ice on Monday.

On the upside we raised around £50 for Wivenhoe Helping Hands, Cycle Cinema's new screen looks fantastic and the Food Group's pop up cafe had some very excellent treats on offer.

Happy Christmas everybody, and a big thanks to all that came, The Station Hotel for sponsoring the film and all who helped out.

13 December 2012

On 30th and 31st of January I will be attending a community training event run by Trafford Hall.

This course gives community
volunteers the knowledge and enthusiasm to set up a local project to
repair/remake clothes, swap clothes, make other things from clothes
(e.g. bags, cushion covers) - through to development as a small local
enterprise. There will be lots of hands-on practical work over the 2
days to help you get to grips with some new skills.

I'll be bringing my new skills back and inviting you all to join in the fun, so watch this space!

2 December 2012

In full swing: some of the cafe team which included: Ruth, Rosie, Lucy, Jean, Catherine, Hilary, Denise, Geoff and Jo.

Ok, ok, so it wasn't just us. An awful lot of work obviously went into the planning and amazing staging of Wivenhoe's first Health and Healing Fair, held at the Loveless Hall on Saturday. A fantastic mixture of stalls, workshops and live demonstrations (I particularly enjoyed Richard's yoga) created a really good atmosphere and people hung around for ages. Aided in part, we hope, by the fresh coffee, cake and soup of the Transition Cafe.

Which was a huge hit! Well done to all those involved; the food was all home-made and we were busy pretty much from the moment we opened until closing at 5pm. I'm not sure how many people knew it was a 'Transition Town' Cafe, but we put up our banner and I certainly cobbled a few people to talk about why we exist and what it is we're trying to do... that question "What is it that TTW is trying to do then?" always makes me think again and re-visit the issue of why we came together in the first place! On different days I talk about different things. Sometimes you can't shut me up about the model chicken-project, on others I'm much more aware of how far our food has to travel before we get to buy it. On still other days, I'm all about the value of increasing community-cooperation and inter-dependence, and just having more fun together as a community.

Anyway, the cafe was a great success and many of the stallholders came by to say thanks. So thanks to all.

Here are some pictures of the event... sadly no close-ups of Richard's yoga :(

Steve offered amazing Shiatsu 'taster sessions' for a fiver at the Fair. I had one and it was lovely!

Sarah McCaskey doing a Hatha Yoga demo with some students from her class. Nicola Dawes also did an amazing Pilates demonstration and workshop. Regrettably I failed to get a picture of her (sorry Nicola!)

Stefan and Gareth offered a selection of super-nutrients, sourced from the States.

Nyali Muir offering Coaching and Meditation

Since Lisa Newman was feeling a little camera-shy, I took her place for a moment... and quite possibly scared away some customers since I look like a mad-woman.

Ginny had a terrific selection of health-related reading, from the ever-wonderful Wivenhoe Bookshop.

Alan and Denise, grand-masters of the event.
Apart from event-organising, Alan also helps people feel a lot less stressed.

Viv Eunson almost sold out of all of her herbal products!

Sadly I also didn't manage to photograph the following lovely people (apologies):

Gautami Woods doing her Om Healing, meditation, Atma Kriya or Kinesiology. She runs free Om Healing workshops in Wivenhoe, as well offering as her other skills here too. If you want you can find out more by emailing her on gautami@atmakriya.org